Remote TIP

BRT · Jan 13, 2015

There was no way I was going to climb this silver maple. Fortunately to the left was a huge walnut, and a medium sized elm on the right. It takes a little more creativity, and a little more work when you don't have a bucket truck.

I didn't rig any of the tree (probably wouldn't have tolerated much to begin with), just chunked down small sections until the trunk would fit inside the fence.

TreeLogic · Jan 13, 2015

Yep, that one looks sketchy. I swear in pic #1 it looks like you're tied into a utility line. I'm guessing that's your remote TIP, on a line spanning between the other two trees?

squad143 · Jan 13, 2015

I had a buddy climbing for me one day and he did something very similar on an Ash he was not too confident about.

JontreeHI · Jan 13, 2015

Sweet! I ran a similar set up one time on a sketchy coconut removal at a Gold Coast Waikiki condo building, ran the line from another palm to the building itself. It was super bouncy, just chunked into the surf, bob the ground guy had a good day.

BRT · Jan 13, 2015

TreeLogic said:
Yep, that one looks sketchy. I swear in pic #1 it looks like you're tied into a utility line. I'm guessing that's your remote TIP, on a line spanning between the other two trees?

Yea--it's actually a 5/8 bull line. Had to stretch it as tight as possible to get the height I needed.

BRT · Jan 13, 2015

squad143 said:
I had a buddy climbing for me one day and he did something very similar on an Ash he was not too confident about.

Nice. Looked like the tree held up to the rigging pretty well in spite of its questionable stability.

KevinS · Jan 13, 2015

Do you guys just clip a floating biner onto you high line or do you set a butterfly so you have a stationary point?

squad143 · Jan 13, 2015

BRT said:
Nice. Looked like the tree held up to the rigging pretty well in spite of its questionable stability.

Yes it did. It had some hollow sections at the union and it was a little out of his comfort level. He came up with this idea.
I was doing a couple of other trees and had the camera with me.

squad143 · Jan 13, 2015

KevinS said:
Do you guys just clip a floating biner onto you high line or do you set a butterfly so you have a stationary point?

My buddy used a floating biner.

kstreehuggerco · Jan 13, 2015

Pretty Slick. Me thinks that a static high line would be a little less bouncy than that bull rope. Well done though

KevinS · Jan 13, 2015

I've done this before but always used a climbing line. I anchor 1 end then snug the other end up with at least a 3:1 I find it helps with the sag and bounce, kind of like a zipline getting side loaded.

KevinS · Jan 13, 2015

squad143 said:
My buddy used a floating biner.

Is there any benefit to having a floating tie in? Any other system gives you a point to pivot off of, does the rope ever drift and get out of place or in the way of your tops coming out?

By the sounds of it this went well for him and I'm always open to the little things that alter different climbing systems.

squad143 · Jan 13, 2015

KevinS said:
Is there any benefit to having a floating tie in? Any other system gives you a point to pivot off of, does the rope ever drift and get out of place or in the way of your tops coming out?

By the sounds of it this went well for him and I'm always open to the little things that alter different climbing systems.

I believe that the idea of having a floating tie in would be that as you moved about the canopy, your anchor point would be directly (or as close to) above you. Less of a swing should something go wrong. The high line was just there as a safety so he wasn't really using it to pivot off of. However I'll have to keep the idea of a highline remote pivot point in mind.
On this particular tree, I don't believe this system was absolutely necessary, but it did give him an exrea level of comfort (every climber is different). We had the extra time to set it up and I was curious about it. Gave me an extra tool for the toolbox.
We used 1/2" PMI easybend static kernmantle rope for the highline as that is the longest rope I have (500') -although we used about half. We tensioned it as you mentioned. Anchored one end and used 3:1 MA to tighten the slack.

Where in Ontario are you located?

KevinS · Jan 13, 2015

Kitchener-Waterloo. Where are you?

squad143 · Jan 13, 2015

Whitby
Most of my work is in Toronto, east to Oshawa and Haliburton.

BRT · Jan 13, 2015

KevinS said:
Do you guys just clip a floating biner onto you high line or do you set a butterfly so you have a stationary point?

Used a butterfly in this instance. Main reason was, the anchor point in the walnut was a good ten feet higher than the one in the elm. This was due to available sufficient limb junctures in two trees of significantly different maturity levels. Gotta use good strong anchor points when using this system because there is so much ma if your 165lbs shock loads the TIP due to a fall.

Floating is nice on many occasions, but in this instance, it would have acted more like a zipline if I had come off the maple. Needed the height advantage of the walnut anchor point in order to achieve the climb height I needed in the maple.

Squad makes a good point; a floating anchor keeps the TIP closer overhead. Another reason that this stationary TIP worked on this occasion was that all the work took place close to the trunk, ie. I was never at a great angle from the TIP--hope that makes sense.